Review: Amazon Kindle

Sub Title: Look, But Don't Touch

The Kindle from Amazon — the one called just “Kindle” — is now available for $69, or $89 if you want one that never displays advertising. It’s an older product, and technically inferior. The e-ink screen isn’t as sharp as the newest Kindle Paperwhite, and it doesn’t light up. Also, it has physical page-flip buttons next to the display and physical buttons at the bottom instead of relying on a touchscreen for everything. But it’s still a Kindle, and a great deal — especially if you’re looking for a low-cost way into e-readers and e-books. Also, some people prefer physical page-flippers to the touchscreen controls. Here’s our original review from 2011, when the Kindle was brand new. All the pricing info has been updated.

WIRED

Hardware is lighter, snappier and all-around improved. Ads in the “special offers” versions only appear in the home screen and screensavers, never in the book. Great battery life — five days of use, even with the night light, and it isn’t yet half empty.

TIRED

Typing is t-o-r-t-u-r-e. Power switch is now a button, not a slider, and easier to trigger when you don’t want to. Screen can get scuffed if you carry it everywhere, necessitating an accessory cover or sleeve.

For the legions of fans still devoted to the e-ink reading experience — easier on the eyes, the batteries and the biceps — the big news to come out of Amazon’s recent high-profile product launch wasn’t its fancy new Android tablet with a backlit 7-inch screen. It was the line of new e-ink Kindles.

Amazon’s new Kindles bring an updated hardware design to its family of popular black and white e-readers. There are different configurations — touch and non-touch, Wi-Fi-only, and 3G cellular data-enabled — all being sold at different prices, and all of them cheaper than the Kindle Fire tablet. They’re made for people who don’t want the tablet; those who just want to read comfortably in a way they’ve grown familiar with, thank you very much.

The Kindle’s new form factor is noticeably smaller than the previous versions. It’s been shrunk down to about the size of its closest competitor, Barnes & Noble’s Nook e-reader. The keyboard is gone, shaved from the device’s chin like the beard of a reformed hipster. In its place are four buttons: “back,” “menu,” “home,” and a button that brings up an on-screen virtual keyboard, plus the Kindle’s familiar five-way controller situated in the middle.

Amazon loaned me the cheapest one, which sells for as little as $69 (subsidized with advertising, $89 otherwise) and doesn’t have a touch screen. There’s also the Kindle Paperwhite, available with only Wi-Fi connectivity for $119 ($139 without ads), and one with both Wi-Fi and free 3G for $179 ($199 without ads). The Kindle Fire, a full-color, $230 tablet that runs Android, also comes in several configurations.

I’ve been testing it for five days, and I can tell you that as an e-book reader, it’s better than the old Kindle in almost every way. It’s about 20 percent lighter, weighing six ounces to the older Kindle’s eight and a half ounces. It’s also about 30 percent smaller, though the screen is exactly the same size. The new Kindle’s screen does look slightly larger when you place it next to an older one, but that’s only an optical illusion caused by the differences in the sizes of the bezels around the screen. Other improvements include a slight boost in page-turning speed, as well as new page-turning buttons that are not only more satisfying to click, but more attractively integrated into the bevel that runs around the entire edge of the device.

But the real win here is the smaller size. It slips into jacket pockets and pants pockets the older Kindle couldn’t. It’s also easier to hold while reading, and the absence of the keyboard results in fewer unintentional button presses.

So. No keyboard? I’m not going to lie — typing anything is a chore. To enter text, you click the keyboard button to bring the keyboard up on the screen, then navigate from key to key using the five-way controller. It’s about as painful as it sounds. Entering Wi-Fi passwords or buying books require extreme fortitude — Over, over, down, “M.” Over, over, over, “i.” Down, over, over, “t,” and so on. It’s like trying to master the most complex special move ever on Street Fighter.

Thankfully, you won’t need to do this very often. Buying books can be accomplished primarily on your desktop or your tablet, and you don’t need to type a word to sync the book to the device. In theory, you’re only required to type when joining a Wi-Fi network, and since you only have to do that once or twice, it’s not a big deal. There’s also the option of password-protecting your Kindle, which is probably just there to please masochists. Actually, you could easily set up a one- or two-letter password and leave it at that, since any petty thief confronted with such a terrible text-input scheme would probably rather just huck the thing than try to hack into it.

Whether or not the non-touch version is for you comes down to how you want to use your Kindle. Whereas the older, keyboard-bearing Kindle (which you can still buy on eBay) could be leveraged in a pinch to answer an e-mail or call up a web page, that’s not really an attractive option here. If you like to annotate your books, this isn’t the Kindle for you. You’d probably be better off with the $119 Kindle Paperwhite, which, except for the touch screen and the absence of a few buttons, is just like this version.

However, as an e-book reader, this new Kindle has everything else you’d want. It’s lighter, faster, cheaper, and easier to carry around.

With the new form factor comes new carrying cases. The popular leather case with the reading light built in ($60, above) has been refined. It’s essential if, like me, you use the Kindle primarily in darkened rooms. The case now has a more elegant light that swings out and hangs over the center of the screen. The clumsy hinge connector is gone, so you secure the Kindle inside the case by fastening it behind the hard rubber housing. I noticed the rubber ring inhibited the action of the right page-forward button. I had to mash it twice as hard to get it to flip pages. The left button worked fine while in the case, so I just switched hands. When I took the Kindle out of the case, the right button worked perfectly again. I don’t know if this flaw is limited to my particular case or if this is a wider issue, but consider this fair warning.

When I test devices like this that are publicly available, I use them in real-world situations. With this Kindle, I read a book over the weekend (Bike Snob, which was excellent) and carried the thing with me everywhere — to the office, to restaurants, into coffee shops — usually in the back pocket of my jeans. Kindles are popular, and this one is recognizable as the new model, so it drew a lot of attention. “Ooo, is that the new Kindle? Can I see it?” And without fail, when I handed it over, everyone did exactly the same thing. They touched the screen. Not once or twice, but numerous times, and with increasing urgency and force when it failed to respond.

This says more about us and our expectations than it does about the device itself. But it’s worth noting that the lack of a touchscreen seems out of step.

With all the touch-enabled e-readers out there — the Paperwhite, the Kobo Aura HD, the other Kindles, and the entire tablet universe — why choose one so unjustly crippled?

I can think of some reasons: Because it’s only $70 if you don’t mind the ads. Because it’s tied to Amazon and you prefer to give Amazon your business. Because all you plan to do with your e-reader is read books, and nothing more. Because you don’t have to worry as much about carrying it everywhere.